Carlos Rodon’s Signing Continues Big Spending For The New York Yankees

Last week the New York Yankees re-signed Aaron Judge as quickly as humanly possible with managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner interrupting his trip to Italy to negotiate a nine-year, $360 million contract with the AL single-season home run leader.

After committing to the largest free agent contract in the nearly 50-year history of free agency, the Yankees quickly pivoted to fill another area of need by adding Carlos Rodon.

When the deal becomes official, it will be for six years, $162 million, a slight dip from the seven years Rodon was seeking but it is continuance of the sudden spending spree initiated by the Yankees, who according to Roster Resource are $60 million north of the $233 million base threshold for the cutoff point at the fourth competitive balance tax tier.

First there was the $40 million to retain Judge’s good friend Anthony Rizzo, a move that was viewed as a favorable sign for the Yankees retaining their star and main gate attraction. Then there was the smallish $11 million outlay for Tommy Kahnle, whose previous stint with the Yankees was derailed by needing Tommy John surgery shortly into the 2020 pandemic season.

If you’re scoring at home or keeping track of the Yankee money, they are up to $573.5 million in future salaries, which is a spending spree similar to what unfolded after the 2008 season.

With a move into a new stadium and coming off an 89-win season that marked their first non-playoff season since 1993, the Yankees spent slightly over $400 million on free agents CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark Teixeira.

In recent years, the Yankees have sat out most of free agency, only making specific players their focus, notably the $324 million set aside to get Gerrit Cole, the pitcher known to Brian Cashman as their “white whale” since he did not sign with the Yankees in 2008 out of high school, went to UCLA and was the top overall draft pick in 2011.

Rodon is not quite the Yankees “white whale” but for most of the offseason, the Yankees were linked to him with the speculation picking up once Judge was securely re-signed last week.

And on a day when Scott Boras appeared at two introductory press conferences, the super agent apparently finished up negotiating Rodon’s contract with the Yankees. Boras spent Thursday morning at the press conference to officially announce Brandon Nimmo’s eight-year, $162 million and then a few hours later he was at Fenway Park for the press conference to announce Masataka Yoshida’s five-year, $90 million deal with the Red Sox as they try to deal with the bad optics of losing Xander Bogaerts.

It was a whirlwind day for Boras with three contracts with three different teams and perhaps the Rodon deal is the most remarkable considering he was non-tendered by the White Sox following the 2020 season. The White Sox eventually brought him back on a three million deal and he responded by throwing a no-hitter and winning a career-high 13 games.

Still, the White Sox opted against retaining him, perhaps flustered by a late velocity dip and a late shoulder injury. Rodon parlayed his career year into a two-year, $44 million deal with the Giants, who were kind enough to give him an opt-out. And when Rodon had other career year, it was apparent he was going to get paid handsomely and when the contract on the Yankees officially gets signed, he will be among those to make one of the quickest ascents into baseball’s high earner bracket.

Rodon is there because of his ability to be one of the game’s harder-throwing southpaws with a fastball averaging 95.5. He also got hitters to swing through 14.1% of his pitchers while allowing lefties to bat .179 and righties to hit .207.

The Yankees essentially signed Rodon to fill the spot left vacated when Jameson Taillon signed with the Cubs. Taillon was a great story as someone coming back from testicular cancer and two Tommy John surgeries to be serviceable for the Yankees, but ultimately they made no effort to retain him and moved on to Rodon.

Rodon can now be considered a co-ace with Cole with breakout star Nestor Cortes moving to the third spot and the fourth spot baring injuries being filled by Luis Severino and Frankie Montas. Severino proved he was back from injuries even if the Yankees annoyed him by keeping out for two months while Montas stumbled in his first three months but is being counted on to be some version of himself from Oakland.

Either way, the spending was required by the Yankees to enhance an area that performed well in recent years and now may become even better and maybe gets them closer to finally overtaking the Astros, though that narrative remains the same until proven otherwise.